Week 7: Back to school, keep your pencils sharp(ie)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (David Bell)

September is undoubtedly the best month here on the west coast of British Columbia. The weather is still beautiful with sunny afternoons but still enough of a chill in the morning to start bringing in our sparrows and the start of raptor migration. These are the kind of days where the heat is blasting in the car in the morning and then the AC on the way home. A few kettles are starting to form with good numbers of Turkey Vultures and Red-tailed Hawks with a few accipiters sprinkled in. Both stations had a big push of Vaux’s Swifts with hundreds flying over the station and a few getting dangerously close to net 7 and 8 at Pedder…

Sunrise at Rocky Point (Rebecca Golat)

Sadly our trusty interns are back to school just in time for migration to pick up. 

Please take a look at the volunteer schedule to sign up for a shift! We have lots of spots available at both stations.

Sign Up Now

Only one week until owl banding starts so make sure to get signed up for that as well.

Red-breasted Nuthatch Family (Rebecca Reader-Lee)

It felt like fall this week as Pedder recorded 217 new bands including the first Gambel’s White-crowned Sparrow, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Hermit Thrushes of the year. There are also higher numbers of Lincoln’s and Fox sparrows to brighten the colder mornings. It was a banner week for Swainson’s Thrushes with 32 being banded this week alone. Another highlight of the week was a visiting family of nuthatches; three Red-breasted Nuthatches were all caught in net 14. Some keen observers managed to spot a Ring-billed Gull and a Marbled murrelet which are both new observations for the season at Pedder.

Two subspecies of Orange-crowned Warbler. orestera(left) and lutescens(right) (Samuelle Simard-Provencal)

Rocky Point recorded 248 new bands including the first Steller's Jay and two of the first three Golden-crowned Sparrows of the week. Sparrow numbers in general continue to trend up with 10 Fox Sparrows and 23 Lincoln’s Sparrows banded this week alone. The real banding treat of the week was three Sharp-shinned Hawks! This is particularly remarkable as both stations combined caught a total of six Sharpies over the past three years. The record number remains for now, 10 banded at Rocky Point in 2002.

Volunteers with their Sharpies! (Rebecca Golat-David Bell)

How do you know it’s September? When Northern Saw-whet Owls appear. September 1st yielded the first Saw-whet of the year to the delight of the crew that day. That was far from all the observations from last week though; Sandhill Crane, Black Swift, Horned Lark are all new for the season and on September 4th, right on schedule a Lewis’s Woodpecker.

Seawatch has been good besides a few foggy days. When it is a clear day we can spot the occasional Short-tailed Shearwater and Sooty Shearwater. New observations for the season include Cassin’s Auklet, Western Grebe, Pied-billed Grebe, Caspian Tern and best of all, David Bell spotted a Leach's Storm-Petrel on the 7th. Large numbers of Red-necked Phalaropes have also been moving through the area.

Orca with kelp on its dorsal fin (Mark Byrne)

Rocky Point had the pleasure of a few sightings of Orcas over the week. On September 4th the pod attempted to swim through the channel but got a bit tangled up in the kelp and decided to turn around. Praying Mantis season is here at Rocky with daily sightings. This introduced species  is common in early to mid September on sunny days in the tall grass. Continued sightings of American Mink, Harbour Porpoises, and Humpbacks are always a treat.

Praying Mantis (Rebecca Reader-Lee)